


your saintly kisses reek of iodine

by bruisedghost



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: M/M, also other soldiers are mentioned but they aren't real characters and i named them, i don't know man. they're just vibing., pre-canon??, vague descriptions of injuries, y'know...war stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22356292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruisedghost/pseuds/bruisedghost
Summary: Before he fully recognizes what he’s doing, shaking fingers are deftly unbuttoning Blake’s jacket. Schofield has adopted a permanent tremor ever since his first battle, ever since the first shot rang out.“What’re you doing?” Blake asks, though it’s far away and unconcerned.“The medic is busy. You need to take care of this now. It’s a bad place to be infected.” Schofield leaves out the obvious: you can’t amputate a torso. “Sit up straight. I’ll do it.”- or, the one where Schofield plays doctor.
Relationships: Lance Corporal Blake/Lance Corporal Schofield, Tom Blake/Will Schofield
Comments: 33
Kudos: 370





	your saintly kisses reek of iodine

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from 'iodine' by leonard cohen. 
> 
> i saw this movie a week ago and ever since then i have been PLAGUED by dreams about will/tom getting up to romantic shenanigans so here. have a written retelling of one of those dreams.

The end of August brings them nothing but a step or two closer to friendly fire. Everything is damp and covered with mold. Their canteens are hot to the touch. Their bodies are swollen and lethargic. Their war has lasted two and a half years longer than it was supposed to. 

Blake has begun to not just tell, but _create_ stories, long-winded and complex tales involving folks from his hometown. Yarns that Schofield has since given up on unspooling, but will half-heartedly follow if he can sense an approaching punchline. Johnson refuses to talk to anyone about anything anymore. Richards has taken to trading the jewelry of dead soldiers for liquor.

The end of August brings them nothing but telegrams and ammunition. The company has orders to stay where it is, camped out in a sparsely wooded area lined by a shallow trench. Some men are starting to go stir-crazy, but Schofield doesn’t mind remaining stationary, understands that the other options are likely much worse. He mentions this to Blake once, who shakes his head and calls Schofield a tortoise. Which, Schofield reckons, is fair. 

So they read their letters and eat their rations, and Schofield beats Blake in gin rummy at least a thousand times. When they switch to poker following Blake’s begging, Schofield wins even more.

_(“You’re cheating. You’ve marked the cards.”_

_“They are your cards.”)_

Eventually, their captain tires of the nothingness, of the waiting. He motions to assemble a small group of men, send them out past their trenches to map the empty, abandoned spaces, and report back. It’s one of those simple, stupid missions that higher-ups command just for the hell of it. It either ends poorly, or nothing happens. Schofield and Blake sign up anyway.

_(“Are you going?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Then I will, too.”)_

Eventually, their captain sends Blake, Schofield, and five other men to crawl over the line. Rifles hoisted onto their shoulders, they are only able to get in a few stumbling yards until Smith trips forward, knee hitting the soil, and his leg gets blown off. 

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Their youngest, a seventeen year old from Scotland, jumps backwards. He drops his packs in order to help, and another explosion sounds when his bag hits the ground. 

Instinctively, Schofield grabs Blake’s arm and pulls them both backwards, back towards their captain, who is shouting for retreat. 

“It’s German artillery shells. This is a field of buried bombs.” Blake’s voice is too loud, startled and shaking as he collides with Schofield. He had been standing close to Smith, and there is muddy blood splattered on his face. 

“Everyone move slowly.” Schofield coughs out in response. “Watch the soil. Retrace your exact steps.” 

The Scot - Andrew - scoops Smith up and they inch their way back towards the trenches. Only Deacon sets off another shell, and it’s only strong enough to propel him forward, onto all fours. He breaks his wrist on the uneven terrain with a sickening _crack._

By the time they reach the captain, Schofield has worked up a proper rage towards the man in charge. He shoots him a dirty look as the company’s medic whisks Smith away on a stretcher with Deacon in tow. 

_We didn’t need to do that._

“Great work, boys. Clean retreat.” The captain says, as though it was a drill. As though what had just unfolded had been the plan all along. 

Schofield still has Blake in a death grip, and he drags him back to the woods, away from the other men, who are rambunctious and obnoxious and entirely too discomforting. He sits against a beech tree, rifle clanking against tin. 

“Jesus fucking christ.” Blake echoes a previous sentiment before settling down as well. His tone is still the strange, despondent tone of a boy who just witnessed carnage. Schofield nods. 

After a moment of sluggish silence, Schofield glances over to where Blake has curled in on himself, exhausted. 

“You’re hurt.” Schofield says. He reaches forward to touch Blake’s uniform. “You’re bleeding.”

“Am I?” Blake sounds genuinely surprised, looking down to where Schofield’s pale hand is covering his side. 

“Yes.” It’s quite frightening, the sight of metal and several small pebbles lodged into Blake’s side. Schofield finds that he _feels_ frightened. It’s unfamiliar, his panic, and when he draws his hand back the tips of his fingers are bloody and his heart drops to his stomach. 

Before he fully recognizes what he’s doing, shaking fingers are deftly unbuttoning Blake’s jacket. Schofield has adopted a permanent tremor ever since his first battle, ever since the first shot rang out.

“What’re you doing?” Blake asks, though it’s far away and unconcerned. 

“The medic is busy. You need to take care of this now. It’s a bad place to be infected.” Schofield leaves out the obvious: _you can’t amputate a torso._ “Sit up straight. I’ll do it.”

“‘Scuse me, Scho, didn’t realize you’d suddenly gotten a PhD on the human body.” 

“I haven’t, but I’m older and therefore infinitely wiser than you.” He jokes, and Blake cracks a smile as Schofield settles across Blake’s lap and pushes the jacket from his shoulders. He untucks Blake’s undershirt, baring his bruised stomach to the humid air. 

It’s an unpleasant procedure, shrapnel being pulled from flesh, but Blake somehow keeps a good humor all the way through. They are both sweating, and Schofield breathes a sigh of relief when he drops the last rock onto the ground beneath them. 

He pulls a rag from his vest and pours water onto it. Silently, he begins to gently wipe away the blood and dirt that coats Blake’s abdomen. Blake’s skin is hot to the touch, muscle softly defined. 

When the wounds are as clean as Schofield reckons possible, he searches through his pocket until coming across the last bit of whiskey, one he’d been saving to drink when the heat finally broke. He empties the bottle onto the damp rag.

“This’ll sting.” He mutters. “We haven’t got any proper salves.” 

Despite his warning, Blake sucks in a breath when the alcohol meets his injury. Schofield can feel it - the shifting of Blake’s diaphragm beneath his hands. Once he’s noticed it, it’s all he can think of, the movement of Blake’s stuttering breaths, his warm thighs trapped between Schofield’s knees. 

“Should’ve given me some of that to drink, y’know, numbing medicine.” Blake teases with a weak voice. Schofield nods. 

Schofield’s last act of playing doctor is to wrap a few layers of bandages around the bruised, bleeding flesh. 

“Good as new.” He says. 

He should move away now, back to his beech tree and his rifle. He should move away now, back to the other soldiers and their nasty talk. 

Instead, he stays still. 

Instead, Blake’s calloused hand comes up to cover Schofield’s where it rests against his bandages, a comforting pressure. 

In Schofield’s mind, it’s the fatigue from a lengthy rotation, the shock from the German shells. It’s sun fever, dehydration, outright insanity. It’s anything other than his own consciousness which prompts him to lean forward and rest his head against Blake’s shoulder, burying his face in the crook of the younger boy’s neck. 

After a stilted moment, Blake’s other hand comes up to rest on the base of Schofield’s neck, carding his fingers through the short hairs there. His rings are cold and startling. 

“Hey, I’m alright. I’m always alright. Just a bit of shrapnel.” Blake murmurs, chuckling at his own dark humor. 

Because of course, Blake thinks that Schofield is just worried, that he’s just had a fright. That he’s being irrational. Schofield supposes it’s all true.

Blake leans his own head down, so that his lips brush against Schofield’s ear. “William.” 

Begrudgingly, Schofield lifts his gaze. “Yes, Thomas?”

“I’m alright.” He says again, and offers a small smile. 

In a sudden flash of absolute idiocy, Schofield surges forward, bringing their mouths together in a way that sends a shock of pain through the both of them. 

It’s quick, rushed and desperate, and Schofield pushes himself away from Blake so fast that, if it weren’t for his shortened breaths and rising blush, he would question whether it happened at all. Blake has adopted an unreadable expression - amusement, perhaps euphoria - and Schofield quickly looks away.

For a while there is nothing but the sound of their ragged breathing subsiding into normalcy. Until, eventually, Schofield wipes his sweating palms on his trousers and asks, with a whisper of a voice, “Poker?”

Blake nods.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fanfic in quite a while so please be gentle. comments and kudos are always appreciated!! :-))))
> 
> also, completely irrelevant side note: one of my other dreams involved tom being so generally overeager when kissing his significant others that will genuinely thought tom was trying to maul him to death when he made his first move. he genuinely thought they were about to throw hands.


End file.
